Do you remember the first Michael Jackson song you ever heard?

I was about 9 when I heard the song Rock With You  from his Off the Wall album.  I remember being in the kitchen with my mom and her friend as they were getting ready to go out.  I wished I could go with them.  I didn't want to stay home with my drunk father who was passed out sleeping upstairs.  But the girls were having a nite out on the town.  Whenever I hear that song I am returned to that moment in my childhood be it good or bad.  Music has always been that for me.  Kind of  like a touchstone to my history.

 

 

A much better memory comes to mind with the first MJ album I bought with a few bucks I saved.  I was 13 and Thriller had just come out.  The best of the best in my opinion.  Beat It was the sh** back then.  I had just gotten my first boom box with a tape deck.  All the kids had them but mostly boys who walked down the street with it on their shoulder and base pumping.  It was a cool spring nite and my friend Lisa and I were outside testing out my new box.  I was giddy with excitement.  As I pressed the play button that was the size of a piece of bazooka gum and heard the beat start I grabbed the silver handle.   Lisa and I proceeded to strut down the block and around the corner with MJ's Beat It blasting.  We thought we were so dam cool.  Just us, the music, under the streetlights.  I don't remember how many times we circled the development of townhouses where we both lived.  I think until my mom came out and yelled to me it was time to come in.  It is one of the few memories I have of feeling carefree in my childhood.  

My husband and I were in the car yesterday when we heard the news on the radio.  I turned the volume up in disbelief.  Then I got chills and tears in my eyes.  Its not like I knew the guy or anything so I wondered why the tears?  As I drove on I thought about that moment on that street with my beat box blasting MJ.  It felt as though a part of my growing up was taken away. 

My heart goes out to his friends and family as well to those of Farrah and lest not forget Ed.  Wow, what a week...

Do you remember the first MJ song you heard?  Was it a good memory?  Does music jostle you memory?  When icons like this die how do you feel?